Into the Storm
by Cincinnatus Magnus
Summary: Ezra had seen and gone through much within the last five years, but he may yet face his greatest trial. In his darkest hour, Ezra will have to come to terms with the darkness within him, or fall into shadow. Update: Rating change to a soft M for military violence and language.
1. Chapter 1

Into the Storm

* * *

 **Authors Note:** This is the first time in a long, long time since I've last written for my own pleasure. Something inside me made write like a mad demon and I sincerely hope it pays off. For some context, this story takes place about two months before the events of Rogue One. In that time, Lothal has been liberated and the Mandalorian Civil War has been brought to an end, with all the clans uniting under the direction of Bo-Katan and the House Vizsla; Kanan and Hera have married; and the greater Rebellion is about to be born. With that I shall leave you, readers, with this first chapter of Into the Storm. Enjoy.

‒Filius Hibernia et Germania

* * *

Chapter 1: The Tempest Brews

It started with the largest delegation of Rebel leaders since the Petition of 2000. After almost four years of fighting on their own, it seemed the Rebellion finally had the courage to face the Imperial forces head-on. After hours of debate and intelligence updates from Kallus and General Madine it seemed that the matter of formally declaring war on the Empire would never arrive. Everyone was slowly becoming more and more restless and tempers were on the brink of flaring. However, no one at the meeting was tenser than the crew of the Ghost.

As important as the meeting was, no one on the ship was necessarily happy to be there. With the meeting consisting of practically all the leaders of the main resistance cells in one single place, it was hard not for the crew to have a collective bad feeling about this. Ezra in particular was on edge throughout the entire meeting. For some reason, he felt as if they were unknowingly perched atop a trapdoor. Feeling an urgent need to have a quick escape ready, he ordered Chopper back to the ship to prepare for take-off. As the droid wheeled off, grumbling something about paranoia, Ezra got up out of his seat to leave.

"Kanan, Hera, I'm going to go step outside for a few moments, guess I just need to stretch my legs." It was an obvious lie but neither of them questioned it. They were both worried about the young man, who was effectively their adopted son, but neither decided to push the matter any further.

Noticing the worried look on their faces Sabine got up and began to leave: "Hera, Kanan don't worry I'll go see if Ezra is alright. I think he'll talk to me, let me know what's wrong."

Still worried Hera almost spoke up before Kanan put his hand over hers as he whispered to his wife: "Hera it will be alright. Considering what happened earlier this year, I think it would be better to let Sabine handle this. She was with him after all, she can talk him down if he decides to do anything rash." Barely reassured Hera only bid Sabine a word of caution before the young Mandalorian artist left the makeshift Parliamentary Hall in search of the troubled apprentice. In the meantime, it had seemed that the seemingly endless debates were indeed coming to a close as the Senator and de facto leader of the Rebel Alliance, Mon Mothma, approached the podium.

"I believe we have now heard all the necessary arguments and information, shall we now put it to a vote?" asked Mon Mothma as she looked out over the dozens of military and civilian officials before him. With the silent affirmations of her colleagues she continued; "All those in favor of ratifying the Declaration of War and the Articles of Rebellion say aye?"

* * *

 _Meanwhile:_

Ezra's bad feeling from earlier only intensified with each and every step he took. The darkness creeping into every fiber of his being, bringing with it an intensely chilling sensation, the hallmark of the dark side's presence. Reaching out into the force, he tried to sense where the danger might be coming from, but he found nothing within the immediate vicinity. "I must be imagining this, still I should keep my guard up and mask my force signature in case anything were to happen," he said to no one in particular. Reaching once more into the force before cloaking he sensed a familiar bright if only slightly diminished force signature behind him.

"Sabine."

Turning around he came face to face with the young Mand'oa. "Ezra are you alright? Hera and Kanan are worried, I know it's been months since it happened but you need to talk to them if your still struggling to cope. I know you don't like it when people worry about you, and that you feel as if you bear the weight of the world, but you can't do it alone. You have people who care about you." Sabine hesitated, "I- "

"It's not that Sabine," Ezra quickly cut her off, Sabine knew it was a load of Bantha, but she decided to let it slide. "I just have a bad feeling about all of this." Ezra said, gesturing to the meeting hall, "There's a foreboding presence in the force, and I just didn't want to take any unnecessary risks. The entire Rebel government is in that building and if the Empire finds out we're here, they'll either capture us or bombard us from orbit, and that will be the end of it." Morosely he finished: "I just want prevent the danger before it happens…again."

"What happened on Ossus was not your fault. It was just bad luck that the Sith just happened to discover the Great Library at about the same time as we did. Least of all, there was no way you could've known that Vader would show up. Besides you saved our lives, you saved my life. Who knows how much longer Vader would've kept me alive?"

' _Vader!'_ The very name worked Ezra up into a rage. The Sith Lord was a harbinger of death, destruction, and despair for the Jedi and the Rebel Alliance. He was the one who betrayed the Jedi Order. He was the one who oversaw the Lasat Genocide. He was the one who enslaved Lothal and Ryloth. He was the one to murder Ahsoka on Malachor. But all this paled in comparison to what happened after Sabine and Ezra were captured on Ossus.

* * *

 _Flashback: 10 months ago_

The Dark Lord tried to turn Ezra, first by torturing him through sleep deprivation, starvation, poisons, and other barbarities. They went a month before they realized it wasn't working. _'Or maybe they knew it didn't work and kept going until they were bored,'_ Ezra thought. But when that failed to break him, they turned their attention to Sabine. Ezra had never been so horrified in his life as he was the moment he heard her almost inhuman shrieks of pains, and at nights when her panicked cries for Ezra to help her flowed out of her nightmares. This continued without end for 4 months

Then one day after getting nowhere, Vader brought the Sabine and Ezra into the torture chamber at the same time. "I understand you have feelings for this Mandalorian girl," a look of horror came over the padawan's face. Turning around Vader brandished his lightsaber and held the blade to the young woman's eyes.

"Wait, no what are you doing! STOP, NO PLEASE, I BEG YOU! NO!" Ezra yelled, but it was to no avail. The Dark Lord seared his lightsaber into the woman's eyes, as she screamed in pain. Sabine was blinded.

The room suddenly went dark as all the energy in the room flowed into Ezra. Suddenly Vader felt a torrent of rage and dark side energy emanate from the apprentice, before hearing a metallic crunch. The restraints had been broken. Unfazed, Vader gave a chilling mechanical laugh as Ezra's rage continued to grow. "Yes, now you see the true strength of the dark side. Join me and you will be able to save the one's you love," Vader arrogantly commanded.

But then Ezra did something the Sith Lord did not expect. From his hands, Ezra summoned a single powerful column of lightning and targeted the strike at Vader's chest. The blast hit the control panel of Vader's suit, before arcing out across his limbs, disabling them all. Looking down on the now immobile cyborg Ezra spoke to him with unrestrained contempt "You kriffing bastard, I should kill you where you lay," Ezra's eyes slowly cooled back to their natural blue and his voice relaxed," but then that would make me no better than you." Pulling the Sith Lord's lightsaber from its grip Ezra activated it "Instead I will ensure that you won't be able to follow us." With that Ezra severed the mechanical limbs of the Dark Lord and threw him into the wall with a force push powerful enough to knock the Sith unconscious.

After making sure Vader was neutralized, Ezra went over to where Sabine was restrained. She had passed out from the pain but Ezra wasn't taking any chances. Not wanting her to wake up in a pained state of shock Ezra used what little strength in the force he had to wipe her memory of what Vader did to her before putting her in a temporary force sleep. He headed out the door with the Mandalorian on her back and left the cell.

It still took nearly an hour before the Empire noticed what happened but in that time Ezra had already stolen a full officer's uniform, had Sabine and their things safely secured in several crates, and had managed to mind trick the hangar control into letting him make off with one of their light transports. Once Ezra had ensured their course home, Ezra returned to the cargo bay to make sure his "cargo was safe. Carefully Ezra picked up Sabine and put her in the small medical bay near the cockpit. A wave of exhaustion suddenly overcame Ezra. With what little mental strength he had left he set an alarm to wake him up when they arrived at their destination. Heading back to med-bay Ezra took a seat across from Sabine, his thoughts about the status of his loved one being the last before sleep took over.

' _Hang in there 'Bine we're almost home.'_

* * *

 _Present_

As much as Ezra hated to admit it, Sabine was right; Ossus was just an unfortunate situation. "Maybe your right," Ezra replied. Looking back up at her face, he noticed the small flickering in the electronics of Sabine's prosthetic eyes. Curiously, Ezra asked; "So how have the new cybernetics been working for you?"

To his surprise, Sabine's face lit up with a smile as she enthusiastically replied: "They are wonderful, I don't know how you managed to convince Senator Organa and the others to pay for them, but it's like I never lost them in the first place." Seeing the small smile on Ezra's face, she decided to continue as he seemed to lighten up. "Actually in some ways they are even better than the one's I was born with; I can now perceive colors I never thought I'd see before. My visual clarity is almost on par with the Mon Calamari and other amphibious species. I think my art has even improved since I got these."

"I'm surprised to hear that, I thought most biomechanical eye replacements had a number of problems. Why don't they seem to affect you?" Ezra asked.

"These things are top-of-the-line, so most of these problems were non-existent to start with. Don't get me wrong, I still get headaches but the doctor suggests that this is mostly phantom pain from when I was blinded. They say they might be able to help it, if they knew how I was blinded," Ezra felt a pang of guilt at that remark. "But I'm much more worried about you. How's the cardiac implant they installed, is it working alright?"

After the ordeal with Vader the brutalities suffered upon Ezra had done some damage to the muscles of Ezra's heart. It was discovered only moments after Ezra touched down on Dantooine base after ensuring Sabine's medical treatment. When Ezra had come down from his Force-heightened state of strength, his heart gave out in exhaustion. He bounced back between life and death before the medics stabilized him. As a result, the surgeons installed a small device package that would dispense nanodroids to repair any damage to his heart; a pacemaker to ensure it pumped correctly, and a defibrillator in case if Ezra had another heart attack. "Honestly, I'd have thought that either Rex or Zeb would end up with one of these things before I did. But it's not like it's really meant to be noticed, but I seem to be healthy enough with it."

"Are you sure? I only ask because I looked at the diagnostics and you've apparently had three heart attacks within the last month. One of them apparently happened this morning. And given how stressed you were back there in the meeting, I thought you were going to have another one. I‒ We don't want to lose you, not when you finally seem like yourself again."

"I'll be fine, 'Bine you can't getting rid of me that easily. Besides the Force is with me, if something goes wrong I can try and heal myself with it until I find proper medical aid."

Sabine strongly doubted Ezra's claims, and Ezra could tell that she wasn't buying it either. But she had seen what he could do in an emergency, and gave him a pass. Ezra gave a small chuckle, he wasn't too surprised that Sabine was getting this worried about him. She had come a long way from that snarky, reckless, walled-off teenager that he met so long ago. Though physically she was much the same, the way she behaved now reminded him of Hera; strong, open, compassionate, and stubborn. Ezra had grown too, every day he looked more and more like his father, but he was also now adopting many of Kanan's mannerisms as well; like master, like apprentice. More importantly in light of the physical and spiritual trials he endured as a POW, Ezra had been knighted as a true Jedi, in the eyes of the force.

"Whatever you say my handsome knight," Sabine joked, eliciting a slight blush from Ezra. "We should probably head back before Hera organizes a search party for us?"

"Yeah we probably shou‒."

"Ezra what's wrong?!" Sabine asked worriedly.

The darkness. It was back again, and this time it struck with the force of a hurricane. Before Ezra could reply an Imperial battle group of two Star Destroyers and four cruisers, two Acclamators-IIs, and two Interdictors had appeared over the horizon. Heralding their arrival was the tell-tale shriek of a flight wing of TIE Fighters. That's when Ezra felt it, a presence he had not felt since his and Sabine's time as POWs.

Vader was here.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Here is part two of Into the Storm. My apologies it hasn't come sooner, but it's been one helluva week. Between finals and the five papers I had to do I've been kept away from my recreational writing. Oh well, at least I completed this chapter. I appreciate the few reviews that I've already seen and I hope this lives up to your expectations, this is actually my first successful attempt at finishing a battle scene, let alone writing one so I hope it flows well.**

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Death on the Winds**

The base looked like someone kicked a hornet's nest as pilots scrambled to their fighters and soldiers rallied to the defensive lines. And the two teenage officers were no different. "Sabine get to the Ghost, Chopper should already have the engines spun up. Take a few guys with you to man the guns. I'm going to try and help the evacuation of the Parliament. I'll keep you on commlink until we're ready to leave. It might be a hot extract so be ready for anything."

Sabine didn't like it, but she understood Ezra's reasoning; Sabine was the best pilot they had short of Wedge and Hera. If anyone was going to coordinate the air defense it had to be her. "Understood Ezra, may the Force be with you," she replied, "and be careful."

"I will, and may the force be with you too." As he ran off, he grabbed as many soldiers as he could to coordinate the defense of this temporary base. "Get those fighters in the air! We need to buy time for the evacuation," he yelled to a group of pilots. "Captain, take Twilight Company and a few of those AT-TEs over to the main pass, if the bucket heads try to bring a battalion through there, we're going to head them off. If you're about to be over-run, scrap the walkers and pull back to the hangar. Just buy us time to get High Command out of here!"

"Hoo-ah!"

Ezra was in full battle-mind now, he didn't even notice when Kanan came up behind him. Drawing his lightsaber, he turned around only to see the blind Jedi that was his former master. "Oh, it's you!"

"Everything okay here, Ezra? I thought you could use some help," Kanan asked.

"Actually, yes, how is the evacuation of the main hall going?" Ezra's mind was focused on getting as many of the top brass out of there before they could be captured. If they were, that was it. Insurrection- over.

"Hera and Kallus are trying their best to get most of the military brass to evacuate. Where's Sabine? LOOK OUT!" They had just barely moved out of the way before a group of TIE fighters landed on their former position. Looking up they saw Sabine fly past in the Ghost flanked by Hobbie and Wedge's X-Wings.

"Does that answer your question?"

* * *

 _Meanwhile_

It was madness, Sabine had never seen so many TIEs in her life. She was almost sure that Wedge had become a double ace just a minute ago. But this dogfighting was getting them nowhere, if they didn't thin out part of the Imperial picket, the evacuation transports weren't going to make it. "Red Squadron, Red Lead. Listen up! We're going to try and knock out those Interdictors. If we don't we're never going to get out of here. Red Eleven through Twenty, you'll provide us cover while we make our attack run."

"Copy, Red Leader. You heard her. For the Rebellion! Tally-ho!"

As the squadron moved in on the Imperial picket the barrier patrols and flak intensified. If they were going to do this with the least loss possible, it was going to be quick. "Red One through Four follow me in, we're taking the starboard cruiser. Red Five through Ten, take port. Execute."

"On your six, boss!"

At that moment, Chopper wheeled into the cockpit. For a droid he was positively pissed, having just come back from contacting fleet. "(Sabine I just got word from Admiral Raddus, neither he nor Ackbar are in any position to provide aid. We're on our own!)" As he finished a turbo laser burst hit the Ghost's lower-port deflector shields.

"Har'chak! This is not good. Chop, send word to the ground forces that they need to start evacuating now!" As the droid rolled off back to the comm table, Sabine returned her mind to the task at hand. "All craft drop payload on my mark, target the gravity projectors. Three. Two. One. Mark!" The fighters unloaded two torpedoes each into the Interdictors' projectors, in a flash of orange and blue, the gravity wells exploded before the temporary singularity left in their wake took the cruiser into oblivion.

"Chopper, open a commlink to the ground forces and route it to the cockpit."

"(Aye-aye!)"

"Rebel Ground Command, this is Red Lead. The Interdictor cruisers have been destroyed. You are clear to evac, I repeat, you are clear to evac!"

* * *

 _Back on the Ground_

The groundside evacuation had thus far proven to be an unmitigated nightmare. The High Command, overconfident in the secrecy of their meeting had foolishly decided to forgo any sort of planning for an emergency retreat, if the need had arrived. Twilight Company and Rex's mixed Clone-Mandalorian battalion were holding the Empire at bay for now but this was only the first wave of many. By Ezra's estimate, despite being a raiding force, the Empire had to have at least 10,000 soldiers in reserve versus the rebel's own 2,000. They had to get off world now.

"Orders sir?" One of the lieutenants asked looking at Kanan and Ezra.

"Your call Ezra," Kanan said.

Putting these thoughts out of his mind, Ezra turned his attention back to the impromptu meeting between the company and battalion commanders. "Here's our situation, we've got reports from the recon platoons stating that the Empire is massing a few companies to launch a direct assault with walker support. Captain Derlin, I want you and your men to pull back and establish a perimeter around the compound in case the Empire decides to launch an infantry raid from the rear, go! Demolish some of the buildings if you have to, I'm sure our Mandalorian hosts will understand."

"Yes sir!"

"Zeb, you're going to take your fellow guardsmen to help assist the evac, we need to get everyone out. Force them at gunpoint if you have to." It was a little extreme to say the least, but what other choice did they have? If Vader was here then Ezra wanted to be certain that no one got captured.

Zeb gave a dismayed grunt and turned to his fellow Lasats, "Alright you sorry bastards, you heard the kid. MOVE OUT!" And with that the former guardsmen of Lasan went to assist with the evacuation efforts.

"Rex you read me?"

"I hear you kid! The grizzled Clone War veteran appeared on the holotable before them. In the background the sound of blaster and cannon fire could be clearly heard. "The situation is getting kind of hairy, damn sniper nearly took my head off! Do we call the retreat?"

There was no other choice; there was no way that Twilight company, a bunch of aging clone veterans, and the Mandalorians could take on an entire Imperial armored column. "Permission to retreat granted, have the engineers rig our walkers to blow, and set them up in a line across the chasm. When those Imps get in visual range, blow the charges and you'll bring half the canyon down in their path. Then get your asses to those transports, WE ARE LEAVING!"

"HA! HA! HA! We trained you well kid! You heard the man! Scorch set up demolitions on the AT-TEs, were giving these amateurs a little surprise." Off camera, Ezra could hear a somewhat deranged laugh before the communications unit cut out.

* * *

 _Two Miles Away_

Scorch and his engineers were taking heavy fire as they tried rigging the Tactical Enforcers for demolition. Problem was the damn things attracted more of the poorly-aimed enfilade fire than the infantry it was meant for. And when a misaimed blaster-shot caught the side of Scorch's helmet he was pissed: "Frelling stormtroopers! Are you boys just about done rigging these?" he asked his engineers gesturing to the AT-TE.

"Just about, sir! But this would go a lot faster if we didn't have to worry about volley fire from those Stormies! I thought volley fire was obsole-" The Engineer's reply was cut short as a blaster bolt penetrated and ripped through his calf. "GAH! Son of a Bantha! Medic!"

Scrambling up the defensive berm, Scorch got on the E-Web turret that was set up earlier and rained fire back on the imperials as he yelled down to his brothers below. "Kix, get your shebs up here! We've got a brother down!"

"On my way! Cover my cross!" As he prepared to exit the trench he looked back at Rex before giving a nod. Understanding the signal, Rex opened his comm to the other men in his command platoon.

"Mad minute, on my mark! 3! 2! 1! Suppressing!" And the firing line lit up the imperial positions like a firework display. Kix dashed like a man possessed towards the rear lines. When he got there he already found the engineer laid out on a stretcher with Scorch and the remaining engineer finishing up the demolitions.

"Kix, we're almost finished but we don't have a lot of time just stabilize his leg and get that hover stretcher ready to move."

"Roger." Getting to work quickly he began examining the blast wound; it looked like it went clean through his gastrocnemius, no sign of any permanent muscle or bone damage. The engineer got lucky, he was going to keep the leg. "Hey brother you're going to be alright. I'm just giving you some Comaren for the pain, a wide-panel antibody injection to prevent infection, and a bacta patch to help you heal." When all was said, and done, Kix left an auto-tourniquet on the clone's leg. If it detected any major bleeding it would activate to prevent further blood loss. The wonders of modern combat medicine. It was a good thing he finished, as he activated the stretcher's repulsorlift Scorch came up behind them. They were ready to pull back to the transports.

"Okay you guys go first, get the wounded onboard the medical freighter, Gold Squadron will cover you as you get off world. Now move!"

Without a word, Jesse and the wounded clone made their retreat. Patching into his helmet comm, Scorch connected with the Company and Battalion commanders. "Castle-Actual, to all company commanders; explosives have been set. Fall back now."

In the trenches to their front Rex returned an acknowledgement signal to the ex-commando before patching into the Battalion network. "Typhoon-Actual, men we're going to be making a tactical withdraw. Each company is going to leap-frog their way back to base. Aurek Company you're going first. Besh Company lay down fire and cover their retreat. Cresh and Weapons company will go last. Much as it pains me to say it, if you can't carry it, blow it!" Receiving multiple clicks of acknowledgement, he pinged Twilight company and the Mandalorian volunteers. "Typhoon-Actual, we're making our retreat now! Be ready!"

"Solid copy Typhoon, hurry up Red Squadron reports that those AT-ATs are almost in range and chatter suggests that the imperials will be launching a direct assault soon."

"Roger that, Wolffe start pulling Aurek company back now!"

* * *

 _Back at base_

Ezra was impressed with how well the retreat was progressing. Rex had trained his men well. Within a few minutes every clone had made it out of the valley before dropping the canyon walls on the Stormies, taking out one walker and crippling another. In the air, Sabine and Red Squadron had already knocked out two of the cruisers and disabled an assault ship. But Ezra had to admit that this would've gone quicker if they had an ion cannon available, but he decided to let that one slide. Now if only they could get these damn senators to leave. Most of the lower level civilian and military personnel had already got off-world, with Twilight company and the Nova Republica battalion underway now, but these obstinate senators seemed determined to be the last one off planet. He wished either Senator Organa were here right now to talk some sense into them. As he focused back on the situation at hand Rex commed him.

"Ezra, me and my boys have made it out of the atmosphere, we're preparing to make the jump now to the rendezvous. Sabine has the Ghost in a holding pattern below sensor range waiting to pick you up. Good luck general, and may the Force be with you!"

"Thanks Rex. May the Force be with you too." That's when Ezra felt it again, that penetrating, icy chill associated with the dark side. Running to the nearest window, Ezra saw a cargo shuttle landing in the court yard before a platoon of storm commandos filed out of the hold. Then the object of Ezra's ire stepped out of the hold.

With his booming baritone voice, Vader began to give instructions to his men: "Commander Sarkli, have your men secure the building, find the rebels, and bring them to me alive. Leave the Jedi to me."

"Yes, my Lord," and with that the commandos began moved into the hangar in delta formation wiping out the guards with terrifying efficiency.

"Kriff," fumbling for his commlink he tried to reach the others. "Kanan you've got to get them out now Vader is here and he's coming for you."

Over the commlink Ezra heard several explosions before Kanan's voice "Vader?! Damn it! Get everyone out of here now for Forc-" The commlink cutout into static before‒ Psshew! "They're cutting through the doors." That sound was unmistakable, Kanan had just activated his lightsaber. Ezra needed to get down there fast. Turning to the wall of the now empty command center behind him, Ezra activated his lightsaber and cut a hole in the wall behind him before blasting the cutout slab out of it with a force push. Jumping through it, Ezra made off like a madman to rescue his friends.

It took nearly a minute of force assisted running before Ezra made it to the secondary hangar. He was too late, Kanan was already struggling in a duel with the Sith Lord as the commandos stormed into the corvette. Sensing his presence, the blind Jedi Knight shouted to Ezra for help. Vader was simply too strong and they both knew it. They needed to end this fight quickly.

Vader unleashed a fury of slashes on the Jedi Knight, trying to wrench the Saber from Kanan's grip as the latter struggled to meet them. Block left. Parry right. Dodge backwards. Force push center mass. All these counters were only delaying the Sith Lord. Before Ezra could get to Kanan, though Vader gripped the Jedi with the force and slammed him into the side of the wall then slammed him into the corvette wall before releasing him. The damage was catastrophic, Kanan had a punctured lung, several broken bones, and internal bleeding. With the last of his strength he deactivated his lightsaber before throwing it to his former apprentice before fading out of consciousness.

Catching the lightsaber Ezra quickly activated. In a state of fear mixed with fury and determination, Ezra took up a Jar'Kai stance before beckoning Vader to come after him. "You have grown powerful since we last met, Ezra Bridger. I am willing to forgive your escape if you would only join me. No Inquisitor of mine has shown as much potential as you have. Give in to the dark side and I may spare your friends."

Uninterested, Ezra struck out at the Sith Lord with a hail of slashes and stabs. Vader desperately tried to block each to his own impressment. Such a raw, powerful connection to the force, the boy reminded the Sith of the late Master Windu himself. But unlike the Korun Jedi master, Ezra's fighting was driven by grief, it was undisciplined. And Vader saw an opening to exploit this with Dun Moch. "Do you want to know what Padawan Tano's last thoughts were before she died?" That had his attention. "She blamed you of course, had you not been in my way she might've still been alive."

Another crack in Ezra's mental shields. Ezra lost focus as Vader brought a falling strike down on the apprentice. Ezra blocked the strike and sneered at the masked demon. "You're lying, she would never say that." Ezra was now fighting defensively as Vader counter-attacked. Seeing an opening Ezra deactivated his sabers and rolled left behind the Sith just as he swung throwing Vader off balance. Popping back up Ezra activated the sabers before thrusting one into Vader's shoulder and slashing the thigh of the other. The Sith dropped his lightsaber before giving a growl of pain and collapsed to one knee. Seemingly disabled for now Ezra let down his guard to catch his breath.

"Well done, not many would be daring enough to attempt a Trakata maneuver. However, it is unwise to lower your defenses!" Before Ezra knew it, Vader telekinetically threw his saber through Ezra's left arm taking it off mid-forearm. Ezra would've screamed in pain but he felt a tightness in his chest as if his heart was struggling to pump blood. The last thing he saw was a support column approaching him at high speed.

The fight was over. Deciding to leave the two Jedi to die, Vader simply ordered his men to return to the ship with captive rebel leaders in tow. As he boarded the shuttle he looked back at what remained of the keep and solemnly spoke: "Farewell, Ezra Bridger, you have fought valiantly."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Okay so after finishing my classes last week, and with it at least several essays and research papers, I freely admit that I took a break in my usual writing schedule. Honestly my mind had gone blank until last night, so I spent most of today just writing up this new chapter. Originially the chapter was going to be much longer, at least 3000-4000 words but I decided I'd split it up; last thing I want to do is give myself a stroke trying to complete that much in one day. So what I'll do is this; I'll post this for now and once I fully plan out what I do next, I'll go from there. By the way I want to add a little in-story retcon to fix an error that _**united88**_ pointed out: yes force lightning would've killed Vader in the way Ezra used it in Chapter 1, however I'm going to go back and make it clear that instead Ezra used the powerful, but decidedly less lethal Electric Judgement used most notably by both Plo Koon and Luke Skywalker in the Legends canon.

Chapter 3: The Storm Wall (Pt. 1)

* * *

Before departing Blue Squadron had left Sabine several of their U-Wings loaded with Kallus's Fulcrum agents to assist with the evacuation and destruction or recovery of sensitive intel. However, they now had a more pressing mission: search and rescue. Sabine's heart sank when the distress call had first arrived over the Alliance battle network. Sparing no time in flying to the fortress base she silently prayed to Manda and the Force for the safety of her adopted family and most importantly, him. Setting down on the tarmac she ordered Fulcrum Group to disembark and carry out the CASEVAC operations. Before leaving the Ghost she instructed Chopper to contact the fleet, "Tell them that we need the Jewel of Neimoidia to ready their triage, we may have critically wounded."

As the Fulcrum commandos swept the keep, they saw worrying signs of the carnage that had just swept through the fortress. Doors blown open with no explosive residue, mangled and dismembered Alliance corpses, and slash marks that could've been left only by a lightsaber. So far only a few soldiers had been recovered an evacuated by the U-Wings, but as they pressed forward it became apparent that the chances of finding survivors were growing increasingly slim. One of the commandos, a Cassian Andor, voiced his dismay at what was being found, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

That was when Sabine heard it, a faint cry coming from the secondary hangar. Signaling the Fulcrum operatives to remain quite she listened more closely. "Help! We are trapped! Please help! Is anyone there!" It was Ezra.

Sabine picked up the pace and sprinted into the hangar, commandos in tow. "Ezra? Ezra, where are you?" she shouted, scanning the hangar. Then she found him and Kanan on the opposite side of the floor. "Man'da! Please no," she silently pleaded with horror and tears in her voice. Kanan's mangled body looked like it had been hit by an airspeeder; battered, bruised, and unconscious but very much alive. Afraid of internal bleeding Sabine ordered the medics to attend to the felled Jedi Master. But when she saw Ezra's condition her heart broke, he had been pinned by his legs underneath one of the pillars and his left arm had been partially severed just below the elbow. "By the Force, Ezra what happened to you?!

"Vader, that monster. He kidnapped the council, then he did this to me," Ezra panted in pain, gesturing to his arm, before a look of concern spread over his face, "Where is Kanan? Are you okay? Are there any survivors?" These questions elicited tears and a small laugh from Sabine. Even if he has been cut in half, he would still show more concern for his friends and family.

"We found Kanan, he's unconscious and critically wounded. But the medics are stabilizing him now. We've also found several survivors already and Fulcrum is helping to evacuate them now," Sabine quickly explained. More calmly she refocused his attention to getting him out of here, "Ezra I need you to focus: do you think you can get this pillar off you?"

Ezra shook his head, "I'm too weak right now, if I try I'll just drop it back on myself. But I've got an idea: this hangar has a crane system, yes?" Sabine looked up and saw the freight loading system above them, looking back down at Ezra she gave him a quick nod before he continued. "I think we can use it to get this damn thing off of me."

"Sergeant!" Sabine yelled towards a commando standing guard around the abandoned transport.

"Yes ma'am?"

"Take some of your soldiers and get that freight loader operational as soon as possible." The ceiling was crumbling they had to act fast before the whole building collapsed.

"Yes ma'am. You heard the brigadier, womprats, get that crane operational now." In moments, they had the crane positioned directly above the pillar, and Sabine was now attaching the lift cables to the pillar with assistance from the platoon sergeant. "Cables attached, ready to lift on your go, ma'am!" the sergeant shouted to Sabine from the other side of the hangar.

A medic stood by as Sabine gave the signal to slowly lift the column off of the young Jedi Knight. She looked down and nervously spoke to the Jedi, "Okay Ezra, cyar'ika, this is going to hurt but the medic here will be able to operate on you as soon as I drag you out." Giving a nod of affirmation, Ezra reassured Sabine that everything would be okay. Though Sabine wasn't so sure about that, she refused to argue and ordered the men to begin lifting the pillar off Ezra.

"AHHHH! Fuck!" Ezra cried in pain as the feeling, and the pain, began to return to his legs. And though Ezra wouldn't say anything about it, Sabine dragging him across the floor certainly didn't help. As the medic tended to him Ezra began to feel a tightening in his chest as the medic's monitor began beeping rapidly. Eyes wide with fear he knew what this was, his heart implant was malfunctioning. The last thing he heard before passing out was Sabine screaming his name.

* * *

 _On board the ANS-734 "Jewel of Neimoidia":_

The Jewel of Neimoidia was a relic of the Clone War, an old Trade Federation Lucrehulk battleship that had been converted to serve as a hospital ship and mobile command base for the Rebel Alliance. With enough supplies to service several divisions for almost a year, it was the perfect temporary headquarters until a replacement for the base on Dantooine could be found. But that was the last thought going through Sabine's mind at this moment. The surgeons had finished operating on Kanan and it did not end well: multiple organ ruptures, severe internal bleeding, and multiple fractured bones throughout his body. The doctors were able to revive him, but he was now in a coma with no telling if, or when, he would awaken. Sabine though still numbed from the news, breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Ezra's medical report. The doctors had managed to repair and reinforce his heart implants, and though he lost his arm and broke several ribs he was surprisingly in great shape. The nurse stated that he was now asleep, and Sabine wanted to be there when he woke up.

* * *

 _Location: Outer Rim, Unknown planet_

When Ezra woke up, he found himself in a place that could only be described as the embodiment of hell. The sky was red and black with specks of sunlight barely visible through the ashen clouds. Columns of fire and smoke erupted from the volcanoes that dominated the landscape. On a cliff in the distance Ezra saw what looked very much like a cathedral made of obsidian. It's obviously unnatural origin, and the darkness that emanated from it made Ezra uneasy. But urged by some powerful force, he made his way to it like a moth to a flame. As he got closer he began to sense things, dark emotions. The land felt full of rage, fear, and sorrow as if they acted as a scar on the land.

That's when he heard it, a broken-hearted cry in a voice that seemed familiar. _"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you'd destroy the Sith, not join them. Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"_

' _That voice... I know it,' Ezra thought, 'Master Kenobi.'_ Ezra, quick as he could, made his way over the ridge-line where he thought he heard the voices. At the top, he saw a bluish specter over-looking a figure on the bank of the lava flow. The figure on the bank appeared to be a man in his twenties, missing all of his limbs except for his right arm.

As Ezra continued to watch, the man looked up and gave the specter of Obi-Wan a rageful snarl. _"I hate you!"_ It was Anakin!

' _It can't be, no this isn't right,' Ezra panicked, 'That can't be…Master Skywalker?'_ As the shock and tears from this revelation began to mark his face, Ezra looked back at the specter of Obi-Wan only to see him appear to choke back his own sobs as he steeled himself for what he'd say next.

" _You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you…"_ As he began to walk away he looked back to see his best friend burning alive, the tears finally broke through and he said in a low voice: _"But I couldn't save you."_

Ezra continued to watch the scene unfold in horror, as the fallen Jedi continued to burn. Hoping it'd end with a quick death, Ezra was terrified to see that Anakin was still moving though badly burned by the lava. Now the smell began to catch up with the visual, an acrid smoke of soot and vaporized flesh moved in Ezra's direction and into his sinuses. Nauseated he ran as fast as he could in the direction Obi-Wan went until he felt a deep chill crawl down his spine. In a mechanical baritone, a voice called out, "So now you understand. Now you know who I once was, why I am now in this suit." Vader.

Ezra reached for his lightsaber, only to find it missing. _'No, no, no, no, no. For the love of the Force not now,'_ though the young knight's fear was strong, he made every effort to steel himself for what was coming. "Vader! I know you're there," he shouted to the shadows. "Face me you coward!" He was close, Ezra could feel it in the force. He could also detect someone else, a warm and familiar presence. ' _Oh no_!' From the shadows, Vader emerged with an arm raised, ending in a partially closed fist. Behind him the other person Ezra felt had floated into view grasping at their throat, trying to draw a breath. Sabine. "Let her go, Anakin. This is between you and me."

"Foolish boy. In order to truly understand the force, you must suffer as I have suffered. And what better way than to kill the one you love." A sickening crunch came from Sabine's neck as Vader violently closed his raised fist. Releasing his grip, the Mandalorian girl flopped to the ground like a ragdoll. The lights of her cybernetic eyes fading into darkness. And as suddenly as those lights faded, Ezra felt her signature in the force go out like a flame. She was dead.

"No! Sabine!" It was no use calling out to her, the Mandalorian was dead. Ezra's eyes began to turn a sickly yellow color as he leveled his face, full of rage and despair, at Vader. "RAAAGH! SITHSPAWN, I'LL KILL YOU!" Ezra screamed as he charged the dark lord, but Vader was ready for him. Before Ezra could react the Sith Lord repelled him with a massive force repulse.

Heading for the lava flow with no way of stopping himself, the last thing Ezra heard was a voice from within his head: "Still ahead of you, the future is. Prevent it you can. May the Force be with you, Ezra Bridger. Trust in it, let it be your guide, like so many before you have. And save your friends, may you yet."

* * *

 _Jewel of Neimoidia, Ezra's hospital room_

The frantic beeping of the heart monitors woke Sabine up with a jolt only to see Ezra thrashing and screaming in his bed. Before she could call an orderly in, however, the thrashing and beeping suddenly stopped as Ezra dropped back into his bed like a ragdoll. Moving closer to the young man to make sure he was okay, Sabine had the scare of her life when, with a gasping breath, Ezra suddenly sprang awake. Between his hyperventilating gasps, Sabine could make out only barely make out the questions the disoriented Jedi was asking. "What happened? Where am I? Where is everyone?" Sabine was hesitant to try and interact with the confused teen in this state; there was still a Chopper-shaped dent in the great hall of Wren Stronghold from the time the crew and Sabine's family accidentally discovered he was deathly allergic to Mandalorian wine. However, when Ezra started pulling his IVs, she knew she had to act.

Approaching him as if he were a bull rancor ready to charge, she tried to keep her voice calm and steady. "Ezra? Ezra? It's Sabine. Ezra, you are alright, you're in the hospital. Everything is going to be okay." Ezra seemed to drop his guard as he recognized both her face and voice.

"Sabine?" Ezra asked as his mind began to break through the haze.

"Yes, it's me Ezra. I'm right here," she reassured him before asking, "Do you know where you are or remember why or how you got here?" He shook his head no with a noticeable look of uncertainty. She slowly explained how she found him, the state he was in, and the heart failure that nearly killed him en route to the Jewel of Neimoidia. As she talked she noticed fleeting hints of dreadful realization cascade across his face, a sign that his mind had finally broken through the haze and was beginning to remember everything that happened. Choosing her next words carefully, she was almost afraid of the answer to her next question: "Ezra, I need you to be honest with me, okay? What happened in that hangar on Mandalore?"

A guilty expression marred his face as he began to explain: "I...it was my fault, I let my anger cloud my judgement. All I could think of was killing Vader for what he did to you, me, Kanan, all of us. I fooled my self into thinking I beat him, when I brought him to his knees. That's how I lost my arm," he said gesturing to his left arm. "The rest you can probably figure out from when you rescued me; Vader launched a pillar at me, knocking me out. I came to not long after you all came back to rescue the casualties." Finishing his story, a question that he'd been wanting to avoid had popped into his head. "Sabine, did anyone else make it out? Am I the only one left?"

Sabine was quiet for a very long time, her mind busy trying to find the best way to break the bad news. But it was too late, her mental shields dropped long enough for Ezra to telepathically discover the answer. Sabine's cybernetic eyes looked up to see the Jedi get up from his medical bed and detach the remaining IVs and began walking towards the door. Before she could ask what he was doing, Ezra declared with a grave tone, "I'm going to go see him."

* * *

 **A/N:** If anyone finds mistakes in punctuation, spelling, or grammar, for Force's sake PM me and be as specific as you humanly possible. I don't really read what I type until it's too late, so a lot of my writing has that "shitty first draft" look.


	4. Authors Notification No 1

**Author's Notification No. 1**

Greetings fellow fanfictioneers and followers, I've inadvertently wrote myself into a writer's block hell because of the way in which I concluded the last chapter. So, here's the situation: if I can ask for your patience for between two days or a week, I would like to double back and revise the last chapter to fix that open ending. More specifically I'm going to expand that obvious rush job at the end of the chapter to truly finish that scene's narrative before I continue on with the next chapter. Once those changes are in place, I'm going to begin work on the parts of Chapter Four that I actually want to be the focus of said chapter.

What I'm not going to do, however, is change what happened at the start of Chapter Three or the Force Dream. Those parts have, in my opinion, realized their train of narrative "thought," for now. If anyone has any questions please address them in the reviews or via PM. Thank you for your patience, and my sincerest apologies for the delay.

Your humble servant,

Filius Hibernia et Germania

P.S. I will remove this Author's Bulletin once I complete the revisions, and once I complete Chapter Four. If anyone would like to know when the updated chapter is available, give me a PM message and I will try to respond once it's finished.


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Hey! I'm so sorry for the delay in posting this, but I've just had the most damn awful time trying to write this chapter all the way through. Also having to get ready for my little sister's high school graduation didn't really help matters. But I digress. Anyway I want to make a couple lore points for this story, namely you're going to start seeing certain things from The Force Unleashed. However I'm not exactly turning Ezra into Starkiller, you'll see what I mean by the time the story is finished (and without a doubt I want to, and will, finish this story). Other than that, I decided to expand a little on Kallus by giving him a full Romanesque name and giving him a home world named for an Ancient Roman city where according to legend Aeneas settled after the fall of Troy and where the bloodline that eventually spawned Romulus and Remus came from. And one more thing before you all continue reading; I've dropped the attempt to give unique names to each chapter, they were all meant to follow a pattern but that's been a real bitch trying to maintain and I've given up on fighting that pointless battle.

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

* * *

 _ICU, Hospital Wing, Jewel of Neimoidia_

When Ezra walked into Kanan's room in the medical bay, it was almost as if he was walking into a tomb. The room had little more than a single medical capsule in the middle of the room. Inside it Kanan laid comatose, with a number of tubes running in and out of his broken and battered body. Ezra had seen many wounded men over the years, but there was something about seeing his adoptive father lying there that made the taste of bile creep up his throat. Ezra stood motionlessly at the side of the capsule for several minutes before he silently opened the casket-like container.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and spoke: "I don't know if you can hear me Kanan, but they are gone; Hera, Zeb, Mon Mothma, everyone, and it is all my fault. I let fear cloud my judgement, I felt Vader's presence just before the attack on Mandalore. If I had just warned everyone when I first felt it, maybe none of this would happen. But now here we are: I lost an arm and nearly died, you just might be brain dead, and most of the Rebel Command has been taken." Reaching down to his hip Ezra and took up Kanan's saber, which one of the Fulcrum commandos kindly recovered, returned it to Kanan's hands before placing them back across his chest. "I will find them, father, and I will bring them home." With that he closed the capsule and walked out of the room.

He was on his way back to the room when his commlink began to go off. Reaching to his belt, he pulled it off and raised it to his mouth to speak: "Yeah?"

"Ezra," it was Kallus.

"Yeah, what is it Junius?" Ezra still felt weird being on first name basis with the former Imperial security agent.

"Bail Organa would like to see you in the conference room on the observation deck," stated the new Alliance Spec-Ops commander. "Oh and bring Miss Wren with you too," he added. "Kallus, out."

"Yeah, we'll be there gives about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, Bridger out." As Ezra entered the door to his room, he found Sabine lying asleep on the bed, arm draped over the side. On the floor under her hand, Ezra saw Sabine's artbook on the floor. Picking it up he was surprised to find a drawing of the two of them, Ezra was wearing the most beautiful set of Jedi Robes he'd ever seen. The robes consisted of a hooded under-tunic made of brilliant white cloth and pants made of the same fabric bloused over his boots. On his chest and shoulders, he wore a set of Mandalorian armor plates consisting of a bronze-painted cuirass and a pair of pauldrons with the Rebel starbird painted in maroon on each one. On his hands and forearms, brown cloth was wrapped tightly under a set of Mandalorian gauntlets, his right hand wore a glove covered in silver plates over the joints. Finishing the ensemble was a brown tunic worn over the armor plates, kept on the body with a white sash that would also hold his lightsaber before extending into a set of coat tails that ran the sides of his legs.

"By the Force this is beautiful," Ezra said with a hint of wonder in his voice Fascinated by what he saw, he couldn't refuse the temptation to continue his snooping. For several pages, he saw a number of interesting sketches ranging from Rex in the dress blues specially designed for the Nova Republica legion, Sabine wielding the Darksaber in ceremonial Mandalorian armor, Kanan and Hera on their wedding day. However, he was shocked by what he saw next: it was a drawing of him in the same robes as before, only this time he was holding Sabine, decked out in the same Mandalorian armor from before, in his arms as they gently kissed each other. A torrent of emotions whirled inside Ezra's head joy, love, hope, excitement, worry, fear, dread, and sadness as he tried to process what he saw. ' _I can't believe it, she actually feels about me the same way I feel about her!'_ he excitedly thought to himself. That's when he noticed it on the drawing, a single silver band on the ring finger of their right hands, Ezra's eyes began to water. _'By the Light of the Force I never knew tha-'_ his train of thought ran short as he heard a shuffling coming from the background. "Fierfek!" he silently cursed as he scrambled to put the sketch book on top of the nightstand before she woke up.

Ezra had just placed the book on the nightstand when he turned around to see Sabine sitting up in the bed. Softly she spoke, "Ezra? Did you just get back? You look like you've been crying."

"I'm fine, I just came back from seeing Kanan. I guess seeing him like that just got to me." The air started to feel oppressively thin as Ezra tried to mask his emotions. Hoping to change the subject, Ezra relayed what Kallus said earlier, "Kallus called, Senator Organa wants to see us."

Ezra's gambit paid off for the moment as Sabine got out of the bed and put her Alliance officer's jacket back on. "This ought to be good, did he say what this was about?" Ezra simply shook his head and said no without going into further detail. Sabine could tell Ezra was hiding something but she decided this could wait until after the meeting. "Well in that case we wouldn't want to be late." And with that they were out the door and on their way.

* * *

 _Minutes before at the private office of the Director of Alliance Intelligence, Jewel of Neimoidia_

Junius Quintus Kallus was never a man to show concern in the face of disaster, but the intelligence nightmare that was figuring out why Mandalore happened and gathering the information for a possible rescue were beginning to drive him to wit's end. And the latest batch that Madine just sent over from Sentinel detachment was deeply concerning; there was chatter over the Imperial MILNET which suggested that the prisoners were being held on Mustafar in a dark site just a few kilometers from Vader's fortress. Furthermore, since the destruction of Tarkin's Star Destroyer, the Imperial Navy has thrown a ring of Kuati durasteel around the planet.

"Blast," the former ISB agent swore as he continued. There was no way that anyone from the Alliance would be able to get past that blockade unless- "Lieutenant, pull up that latest batch of intel swiped from Sienar's R&D department last month."

The young officer was startled by his commanding officer's sudden outburst, but she complied regardless. On the holotable before them appeared a heavily modified Imperial transport craft, known only as the Shadow-class heavy reconnaissance transport. Superficially, it resembled an oversized Jedi Interceptor from the later stages of the Clone War. However, the technical readouts showed it was so much more, next-generation sublight drives, .6 class hyperdrive, anti-ship armaments, a sophisticated sensor and electronic warfare suite, and, most importantly, an advanced cloaking system. The Alba Longa spymaster could only ponder on just how many engineers either Tarkin or Vader had killed to keep this a secret. But that didn't matter now, the Rebels were now aware of it and Kallus planned on stealing it. "Lieutenant, I want this information given a code-word security classification. Also, activate our sleepers in Sienar Fleet Systems, authorization code PR0-X13. I have an assignment for them."

"Sir, yes sir." As his adjunct left the room for the communications center, Kallus brought up his private comm channel. "Senator Organa, I believe I've found a way to rescue our comrades."


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 **A/N:** I have no excuse for how late this chapter is. Sorry. But I'm making up for it by increasing the length. However, be warned that this chapter comes with a rating change to M and for good reason. This chapter gets a little…graphic with the violence

 _Corulag_

"Shit." That was the first thing out of operative Stordan Tonc's mouth when he read the latest communique from Fulcrum "PR0-X13": Prototype retrieval, Priority 0; X-13 prototype. Tonc had done enough retrieval ops for Rebel Intelligence to know the first part of the message was correct, the fact that Fulcrum wanted the X-13 heavy infiltrator prototype was what gave him pause. Everyone who went near that research project except for Vader, Tarkin, and Sienar himself ended up dead, and Tonc hesitated to think that he might soon join that list. It had been two years since Tonc, going by the name Garvin Nachmoor, had been planted in his non-official cover within Sienar Fleet Systems. However, Tonc knew what must be done, if Fulcrum was asking for this suicide mission it better have been important. It was time to come out of the cold, it was time for Garvin Nachmoor to disappear.

 _Nine hours later, Sienar Advanced Projects Division testing grounds, outside the city of Calleston_

It had taken Tonc several hours and several morally questionable actions to dismantle his cover identity. By morning Garvin was going to be found dead in a Calleston alleyway, burned beyond the point of physical or genetic identification. An accident from an overheated blaster cartridge exploding, Tibanna burns rather violently. But Tonc was going to be long gone by the time the authorities realized something was up, hopefully in the X-13.

The Sienar testing grounds hangars were modestly guarded, a few roving stormtrooper patrols here and there, spotting towers, and several KX-series security droids. ' _This should be easy,'_ Tonc thought. The Core Worlds always had relatively lax security. It was time to go to work. From the storage in his speeder he grabbed his gear and began to move on the facility. As he reached the sensor line, he grabbed a laptop and a small seeker droid. The droid was captured and reprogrammed from an ISOF shipment last year, it contained a small stygium cloaking device, repulsorlift, and a cyber warfare package. In other words, it was the perfect droid for a stealthy infiltration.

Hooking it up to his laptop, Tonc uploaded several hacking protocols that he was going to need within the next half-hour and a blueprint of the base which he stole right before dismantling his NOC. Setting the droid on its way all Tonc could do now was wait for the completion of its mission.

 _Meanwhile back on the Jewel of Neimoidia_

Sabine found the walk towards the conference room unusually awkward. Ever since Ezra returned from Kanan's hospital room, he has been unusually tight-lipped. Wanting to break the silence, Sabine decided to go with some small talk. "So how's the new arm?"

Looking at the metallic limb, Ezra furrowed his brow as he contemplated his response. "Eh, it honestly feels odd. The microsensor array is sensitive enough to replicate the natural sense of touch, but it's just that, a replica. If anything, it's a little uncomfortable. It's like my mind realizes that something is amiss, yet it can't tell what it is. I'm thinking about asking Chopper to help me with some adjustments. What do you think?"

"Are you sure it's not stress-related? I've heard that rejection syndrome, despite modern treatment, can still be triggered by elevated stress hormones. Maybe something you might want to talk about?" Sabine felt bad for using the CASIE aug, but when Ezra is this guarded some help might be needed.

With a grim and slightly annoyed look on his face, it was no surprise to Sabine that found this line of questioning increasingly uncomfortable. "Sabine, I know you installed a social analyzer on to your ocular implants, it's not working. There's just some things that I need to keep to myself."

Sabine frowned and creased her eyebrows, that was not the answer she wanted to hear. "Damnit, Ezra! Why won't you let me help you? This isn't you. The Ezra I knew was so full of life and compassion, he didn't run from his problems or the people he cared about." She regretted it as soon as she said it, especially seeing how pissed the Jedi Knight was at that statement. "Wait, Ezra, that was a poor choice of-" she didn't get the rest as Ezra exploded with rage.

"Running from my problems? I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm missing an arm," he shouted as he pulled up his sleeve, gesturing to where the stump met the prosthesis. "An arm I lost trying to save our friends from Vader. You remember him, the tall, dark, psychopath who blinded you and would've killed you just to turn me to the dark side?" Ezra saw of flash of guilt cross Sabine's face, with that last statement. Hoping to press his advantage in this argument he began to blindly counter-attack: "So yeah, I'm sorry if I've been distant lately, but I'd rather not see the person I love get killed because I let them get too close." The silence was deafening as the two stared at each other, processing what just slipped out of Ezra's mouth.

Sabine recovered first. "Wait a minute, did you just say what I think you said?" As she asked she looked Ezra dead in his eyes, the mixed amber-blue gaze seeming to hold him in place.

Ezra stumbled for an answer, "I mean… I…uh..Sabine what I meant to say was…fierfek." Before he could get out what he said, the elevator came to a stop and opened its doors. Chopper was waiting on the other side.

The droid, warbling in binary, chastised the two for being late only to stop and take notice of the uncomfortable situation he stumbled upon. However, before the little smart-ass could comment, a hurried shuffling noise from behind drew his attention away from the blushing young adults. C-3PO, Senator Organa's personal protocol droid. Though Chopper would have much rather preferred the company of R2-D2 or AP-5 to the whining twerp, Senator Organa and Director Kallus required their services elsewhere.

"Chopper, you rusty bucket of scrap! How am I supposed to keep up with you?" the android whined. In response Chopper threw his manipulators up in annoyance before unleashing a set of increasingly profane and amusing insults.

Sabine and Ezra's minds were elsewhere, though, as they stared at the bickering automotons, both still in shock from Ezra's slip up. It was only until Chopper began comparing Threepio unfavorably to a Gorog's cloaca that Sabine decided to break the silence. "Ezra, we…we should probably discuss this after the briefing. I think there's some stuff that we've needed to talk about for a while now." Closing the gap between the two Sabine kissed him lightly on the cheek. "It's going to be okay Ezra. Talk about 'us' later?"

All Ezra could get out was a stammered "Okay." Did that really just happen? Did he really just say those things without thinking? Ezra shook these thoughts before jogging to catch up with the Mandalorian woman.

 _Back on Corulag_

Tonc's infiltration was going smoothly, but that didn't mean anything to the spy. Getting in was going to be the easy part, out was going to be a bitch. Even so, the seeker droid had done its job, having installed several viruses that looped the security feeds and life readings of the guards while disabling the external sensors. Additionally, to buy enough time before their discovery, a rootkit was installed to mask their presence. Alliance cyber-warfare had come a long way since the days of the post-war black-hat cells, if need be they could give ISB's cyber division a run for their money. Acknowledging its success, he ordered it to proceed to the other side of the facility near the fuel and ammo dumps and await his signal.

As he neared the facility wall he took great care to not get caught in the Imperial's spotlights. According to the seeker droid's reconnaissance of the facility, there was a blind spot on the north-western end of the perimeter. When he reached the spot, he pulled out a fusion cutter. Taking great care to limit the amount of light and noise, he cut a hole through the durasteel wall of the compound. However, as he slipped into the passageway he created, he wasn't expecting to find a stormtrooper commander taking a smoke break on the other side. The two stared each other down without flinching, until the stormtrooper began to move.

"Hey, you, stop right the‒" before he could get the next words out, the imperial heard to thump sounds and felt two solid objects slam into his face and neck before everything went black. Tonc looked down at the dead soldier as the blood oozed from his neck and face. Slugthrowers didn't leave the cleanest kills, but they were quick, deadly, and emitted little light or noise with the right sonic dampeners. As Tonc hid the body, he stole it's commlink, code cylinders, and blaster. If things went south, Tonc was going to have to improvise because a simple slug carbine wasn't going to mean much in a firefight with an entire garrison.

As he moved further into the base, he brought up the base layout on his wrist pad. If the plans were correct the hangar where the X-13 was being held was about 300 meters ahead of him. Patching into the security camera system he had the cameras mark and track the positions of the guard patrols on his map of the base before proceeding.

It took nearly 10 minutes of dodging the roving patrols and spotlights before he was in sight of the X-13 hangar. According to security cam information it was lightly manned by a small complement of unarmored technicians and officers. A perfect job for the slugthrower. Now all he needed to do was get past the stormtroopers guarding the door.

"Hey Odda. Do you know where the holo of my girlfriend went? I haven't seen it since the other guys asked to see it." one stormtrooper asked the other.

"Scrib, I haven't seen it. By the way it probably wasn't a good thing to lend it to them in the first place. You'll might want to sanitize it if you do get it back."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

Before Odda could respond, a large explosion on the other side of the airfield knocked the two troopers off their feet. As they came to their senses the commlink on Odda's wrist activated. Over the ringing of their ears they could make out the voice of the base commander. "All units there has been an explosion near the ammo dump and we're getting reports of movement outside the traffic control tower. Base security is to report the tower at once and secure the area. All other personnel are to shelter in place."

"Come on we got to move! Head to the control tower, on the double." Odda commanded to Scrib and a few other stormtroopers in the area before moving off to investigate the commotion.

' _That worked better than I thought it would.'_ Tonc thought to himself as he watched the stormtroopers move off to follow the orders of the dearly departed head of security. _'Shame about the seeker droid though, would've been nice to keep for a future mission.'_ Taking one of the commander's code cylinders, he placed it into the command console next to the door. Cutting power to the lights he then routed security camera footage directly to the augmented reality display of his night optics, he could now see the real-time positions of everyone in the hangar. Once he was set he moved into the building.

What came next was a slaughter, the first engineer couldn't get a sound out before a sub sonic round entered the back of his head and exploded out from his face in a mist of blood and brain. Another went down as Tonc shot out his throat. Stordan proceeded to clear the building as the voices of the officers and technicians becoming more and more frightened as they called out to their dead or dying coworkers receiving no reply. Two minutes later there was only one Imperial left standing, and he was moving to the alarm. Before he could get there, Tonc tackled him to the ground and brought his vibroblade to the man's neck before ending his life.

With the hangar now clear of hostiles, Tonc returned his attention to his objective. The X-13 was more impressive in person, and would've been a great asset for the Imperial special forces. Damn shame they'd never get to use it, this was the only prototype and Tonc had already cleared all copies of the blueprints from the Imperial military network before he dropped his cover. Reaching the cockpit, Tonc only had a few minutes to get the Rogue Shadow cloaked, airborne and ready for an immediate atmospheric jump into hyperspace. "Hmm, all fueled up and fully armed. Core world overconfidence at it's finest." Opening up a communications line to the nearest Sentinel station and sent the mission accomplished signal "Sentinel Station 12 this is Fulcrum operative Smuggler-9, Rogue Shadow! I repeat- Rogue Shadow!" As he closed the line Tonc remotely opened the hangar doors and made off with the newly christened Rogue Shadow as the stormtroopers could only look hopelessly as it climbed into the air and vanished.

 _Jewel of Neimoidia_

Throughout the meeting, Ezra stared blankly at the opposite side of the room until he felt a sharp jab to the ribs as Sabine elbowed him. In a sotto voice Sabine chastised him, "Ezra pay attention! I think we're about to find out why exactly we're here."

Kallus approached the holotable in the center of the room and placed a data chip in the console interface. Projected in the air above the table were a set of documents and the schematics of an unfamiliar starship. "Sentinel group has intercepted a number of communiques regarding a rather large number of high-ranking insurgents being held in a prison camp on Mustafar. We believe these POWs are the same as those taken during the Imperial Raid on Mandalore."

Sabine turned to see the color drain from Ezra's face upon hearing that information. Whispering to him she asked "Mustafar? Ezra that's the place where…" She didn't finish as Ezra completed her sentence for her.

"Where Jedi go to die?" Scowling at the thought of it, he replied, "Yes, it is. I've got a bad feeling about this, no doubt they've built up their defenses since our incursion there five years ago."

Almost as if Kallus heard what Ezra said, he confirmed these suspicions. "Since the attack on Tarkin's battlegroup a few years ago, the Emperor has ordered the redeployment of the Atravis, Abrion, and Savareen Sector Fleets, creating a ring of Durasteel around the system. However, we have managed to acquire an Imperial prototype that might allow us to slip the blockade. We have given it the designation "Rogue Shadow" theoretically it should allow us to reach the planet surface undetected. Captain Rex, I believe that you are familiar with these types of ships."

"Ah yes, General Skywalker and General Kenobi used a similar ship to help break the blockade around Christophsis during the first year of the Clone Wars. However I was busy working with Cody on planning the ground assault," the clone captain replied. "I was friends with the helmsman though, and if I recall correctly there was a problem with magnetic signature detection."

Kallus nodded confirming Rex's statement. "That would be correct, first generation stealth ships were often defeated by magnetometers. However this ship we've stolen in addition to the stygium cloaking device and engine heat sinks, it has an outer hull made purely of a relatively rare metal known as Titanium. The metal in it's pure form is non-magnetic so the ship should be undetectable. Now as for the actual rescue plan, General Madine you may have the floor." Kallus placed another data chip into the console as the documents and Rogue Shadow schematics were replaced by a map.

It depicted a scorched and jagged wasteland of rock and volcanic glass, surrounded to the west and south by a range of volcanos in varying states of activity. Running through the north of the valley before depositing into a volcanic lake in the east was a river of fire. Dominating the landscape to the north was a high plateau from which the river of lava ran before dropping over the edge into the blasted vale below.

Ezra could make out several structures on the map, but one in particular chilled him to the bone. Straddling the lava flow at the edge of the plateau's cliff was the dark cathedral from his vision. His blood running in his vessels felt like ice as Ezra quickly realized that his vision wasn't simply a nightmare but rather a warning from the Force itself. However, to keep from rousing suspicion Ezra remained silent as General Madine began to speak.

Madine pointed to a small flat plot of land near to of the larger structures "We plan to take the Rogue Shadow and set up an LZ and staging area for the operation here at Checkpoint Aurek. This places it within a few kilometers of both the prison camp and the main naval communications outpost, checkpoints Cresh and Besh respectively. We plan to assault the outpost first, before moving on to the camp. Once the outpost has been taken over, we shall wreak havoc among the fleets in orbit sending them to the outer reaches of the sector and disable the unmanned observation posts." Another hologram appeared above the map, this time it was a map of the Mustafar system itself with a rebel flotilla holding position in orbit. "Once the fleets have been scattered we will call in the bulk of Admiral Raddus's fleet from their holding position in the Tosste system. They shall provide orbital security and reinforcements that shall land at the pre-arranged rally point." The holomap of the surface updated to show the landing zone now filled with U-Wings and the Rogue Shadow, in addition to ground forces moving in the direction of the prison camp. "Once reinforcements arrive we will have to move quickly and liberate the prison camp before reinforcements arrive. Probe intel suggests that it is protected by a garrison at least 150 men strong. Once the camp has been liberated, the prisoners will be extracted from this flatland just south of the camp, at checkpoint Dorn, by one of our transport craft while the remaining soldiers will hold position until they are picked up by the U-Wing transports and Rogue Shadow and return to the _Profundity_. As for the rest of the fleet, they shall follow typical raid withdrawal procedure and make a series of random hyperspace jumps before eventually regrouping in the Arkanis Sector. This mission requires experienced officers which we are in short supply of at the moment so Captain Rex, I'm assigning you command of the primary raiding force you'll be going in with the men of the 275th Airborne Ranger Battalion."

"The 275th, eh? Those are Franc's boys, right? Asymmetrical warfare experience, hostile environment training, they sound perfect for the job," Rex stated.

Madine smirked. "I'm glad they're to your liking. Captain Derlin! You'll be heading up the Twilight Company reinforcements as soon as they land." Derlin nodded as Madine continued. "General's Wren and Bridger, it is the council's decision that in light of your leadership of Phoenix and Red squadron, your handling of the Mandalore evacuation, and your familiarity with the system, ultimate command of this operation and of the Rogue Shadow will be shared between the two of you."

This bit of news hit Ezra like a freight train. If his vision was a premonition of the future, then the mission's prospects just became a lot more dangerous. He had to warn Rex and Sabine, but now was not the time or place. Vader may threaten the mission, _'But this time I'll be ready for him,'_ Ezra swore to himself. Shaking these thoughts away, he stood up and said, "You can count on us, we'll bring our comrades back. No matter the circumstances."

Kallus took the stand once more as Madine returned to his seat. "The operation will commence five days from now at 0700 hours. This mission is critical. Many will die. But if we fail here then the future of the rebellion is sealed. This concludes our briefing. Good luck and may the Force be with you."


End file.
